'In a league of his own': Noel wins second straight slalom

Achieving week-to-week consistency and converting first run leads into victories have always been the two biggest blemishes in the career of Clement Noel (FRA).

All of a sudden, however, neither obstacle poses much of a problem for the Olympic gold medallist, who won the Gurgl slalom on Sunday to make it two wins from two races early in the 2024/25 season.

Noel backed up last week's victory in Levi by mastering the icy conditions in the Austrian resort and leading all the way to triumph by 0.43 seconds, giving him consecutive World Cup victories for the first time in five years.

The Frenchman is "in a league of his own" to begin the season, said Atle Lie McGrath (NOR), who came third behind Noel and runner-up Kristoffer Jakobsen (SWE).

Noel's second run was far from perfect, and it was only the 20th fastest of the afternoon session, but his huge lead from the first run allowed him to make several mistakes and still hold on for victory.

"It was a real battle," Noel admitted. "In the second run I was quite confident at the start, but then I had really a bad feeling (after he began making mistakes).

"I tried to ski a little bit better in the steep, and then I made another mistake at the bottom, so I was really not sure that's going to be enough to win, but the most important (thing) is that I had a good margin in the first run, and I'm able to win the race."

Noel's World Cup career has been littered with DNFs and disappointing second runs, despite his share of victories (12) and podiums (27).

But at age 27, he seems to have finally found his groove, winning back-to-back races for the second time in his career and first since triumphing in Wengen and Kitzbuehel in January 2019.

Prior to last week, Noel had only won five of the 15 World Cup races in which he led after the first run. But this season he is two-from-two.

"I was a little bit stressed at the beginning (of the second run) because when you have that much of a gap, then you cannot really lose; you feel that it's mandatory to win," Noel said.

"The feeling was really difficult, I made a lot of small mistakes — but sometimes you need to learn like this."

His 1.42-second advantage over provisional leader Jakobsen ultimately proved enough of a cushion to guarantee victory.

The Swede reached his fourth World Cup podium and tied a career-best result by finishing second for the third time, after moving up from eighth after the first run.

"I didn't feel really good in the first run, a little bit passive, so I just changed up mentally and just went for it in the second run," Jakobsen said. "It didn't really matter if you went safe or all in, because it was still so difficult."

"It was a fight from the start to the finish."

Jakobsen's lead held for six skiers, with penultimate racer McGrath missing out by 0.01 seconds to fall one spot from second to third.

"The one-hundredth behind Kristoffer Jakobsen of course hurts, but I'm not complaining," McGrath said. "I'm starting the season off very strong and I feel like I'm in it."

An icy piste in the first run didn't do any favours to the early starters, and while Noel excelled nevertheless, the other six racers in the top seed couldn't get to grips with the track and none finished within 1.20 seconds of Noel's leading time.

Later starters McGrath (bib 11, +0.88s) and Steven Amiez (FRA, bib 12, +0.94s) took advantage of grippier snow conditions to be the only skiers within a second of Noel at the halfway stage.

But despite skiing into second place after the first run, McGrath didn't have an easy time of it.

"It was the worst feeling I've ever had in a World Cup race, probably — I felt so bad," he said between runs. "It's just the combination between a tight and slow course and this snow and this difficult hill."

Those factors derailed plenty of skiers, including last year's Gurgl winner Manu Feller (AUT) and comeback kids Lucas Pinheiro Braathen (BRA) and Marcel Hirscher (NED), who all struggled in the conditions and didn't complete their first run.

Feller and Pinheiro Braathen, who recorded impressive fourth-place results in the season's first two technical races after a year out, both straddled, while Hirscher skied out mid-course after battling too many gates below the ideal racing line.

"I really gave it my all but I just wasn't able to find myself out there today," Pinheiro Braathen said. "I just felt disconnected from the start; it's a tough day to be a slalom skier out here today."

For Noel, on the other hand, it was a beautiful day to be a slalom skier — for the second time in a week.